Justice may be blind, but the legal system sees colors Part 2 - 12.5.2007.2

Continued from Justice may be blind, but the legal system sees colors Part 1...

There is no way possible that the current system will improve when, even in the face of criticism by the highest courts, the average populace thinks that the system is fair or needs to be harsher. There is no chance of repair while the media focuses thoughts towards the impression that Blacks are responsible for the majority of violent crimes, are the majority receiving social entitlements, and generally in the worst class of society.

“Focusing on 2006 (estimated data from the FBI) there were 611,523 violent crime arrests and 17,034 people murdered. 70% of all arrests were for Whites, with 59% of those responsible for violent crimes being White. And White teens represented 67% of all teens younger than 18 arrested.”

Those are the facts, but the media has spent how much time following every aspect of the recent OJ case? How much time was dedicated to Bobby Cutts? And in each case how often did major news commentators all but declare these men guilty from the first day?

“In terms of media time there was about 1-5 ratio at best on the coverage of the Vaughn case versus the Davis case. So far today I have noticed about 5 minutes of news on the Vaughn murders, versus 1 ½ hours (at least) on Mr. Cutts. This was over a 2 hour 45 minute time period. Roughly every 3rd item on cable news is referring in some aspect the Davis case. In comparison there has been 1 item on the Vaughn case in that same time.”

The legal system is not fair. It never has been. It is racist and predjudiced. But there are many Americans that don’t realize this. A friend and colleague of mine once stated to me

“I had no idea of the things that happened to you were possible in America. It would never come into my mind. It would never happen to me, or anyone I know. I’m shocked.”

So once again we will hear about how bad things are. And the media will maybe provide a minute of coverage, unless they are too busy dedicating a day of coverage to OJ sneezing, or Ellen DeGeneres losing another pet and crying on television about it. You know covering the important issues.

Because the legal system is fairer now, more than any other time in history.

Justice may be blind, but the legal system sees colors - 12.5.2007.1

*This can also be found at Black & White Blog, where I am a co-author.*

I was recently talking to a friend and they mentioned how things are so much better for African Americans these days. They believed that the legal system is fairer now than ever before. I laughed.

There is no question that African Americans have long felt that the legal system in America is a failure when it comes to any person of color. We have long complained of higher conviction rates, less access to bails, and harsher penalties once convicted. That says nothing of the stigma attached to those paroled, falsely accused, or who win the judicial action.

There is the examples from the past of numerous lynchings, the eradication of Rosewood, and Jim Crow laws including segregation as recent as the mid- to late-70’s. But on more recent notes there are the examples of Rodney King, Sean Bell, OJ Simpson, Genarlow Wilson, and the Jena 6. To that recent list can be added Allen Snyder.

Who is Allen Snyder? A black man who was convicted in Louisiana for the murder of a man and the stabbing of his wife. Sounds similar to another case? Well this trial was initially in 1996 and the prosecutor removed all African Americans from the jury, and then made correlations to the OJ Simpson case. The all-White jury agreed on guilt and the death sentence.

“Williams made repeated public references to the Snyder case as his "O.J. Simpson case." In his final remarks before jurors, Williams said the case reminded him of Simpson's, although he didn't use Simpson's name.
"The perpetrator in that case got away with it," Williams said, after the trial judge overruled a defense objection.”

Now the Supreme Court is looking over the case. Of course this is after the fact that back in 1986 and 2005 the issue of racial bias in juries was addressed.

"The use of race- and gender-based stereotypes in the jury-selection process seems better organized and more systemized than ever before," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a 2005 case. Breyer said that despite a 1986 decision, Batson v. Kentucky, barring prosecutors from striking someone because of race, studies suggest discrimination "remains a problem."

My point?

Simple. There is more than just an imbalance in the legal system. It’s an absolute fact that it’s prejudiced. But the media plays short shrift to this, and the general White populace believes that everything is fair. At least that’s how I have experienced it.

Continued in part 2...

All are equal under the law. Really?

**This can also be seen at All American Blog, where I am a contributing author.**

I just have to wonder. The legal system in America is skewed. If you are rich, you are set. You can get away with almost any crime. From Ted Kennedy to Robert Blake, it’s happened time after time. But that is not the only problem.

If you happen to not be a White American you can expect even more problems. As I noted in a recent post

“But young White males are dangerous. High school shootings? White males. Most petty crimes, the same. Nooses hung from trees and various other places? White males. ‘Redneck row’ and other whites’ only places enforced by White males. Bensonhurst, and so on and so on.”

But that danger is only a start. Because if you are non-White and on trial for a crime, the chances are you will be convicted (most assuredly if the victim was White) and the penalty will be more severe than a White person under the same circumstances.

Take Mr. Genarlow Wilson, a teen that had sex with another, though younger, teen on a consensual basis. In fact the female was the aggressor. Yet due to her age Mr. Wilson was convicted of rape, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After 2 years, the courts finally overturned the sentence as extreme cruelty versus the crime, and the underlying law has been changed.

In the Jena 6 case, the boys involved were charged with attempted murder. The White male involved had previously provoked the altercation in a fight the day prior (allegedly hitting one of the Black males with a bottle), was knocked unconscious in the case in question, and went to a dance the day of the incident. That does not sound like attempted murder. That’s a lopsided fight and the White teen lost. Bails in this case were set so high as to guarantee the incarcerations of the Black teens. There are more issues with the case but I think the point is made.

And of course there is the case of Ms. Megan Williams. She is the woman from West Virginia that was raped, tortured, stabbed, hair pulled out, boiling water poured on, choked with a noose and more by 6 Whites (3 men, 3 women of various ages). That entire story, and the subsequent arrest, the denial of Hate crime status, and a recent march to draw attention to the injustice have received 2 minutes of attention and have been buried by the major media.

My point is that there is a fascination, and a need for the legal system to prove, that non-Whites are dangerous. It’s a troubling fact that most of the roughly 200 million White Americans never have to question as it never applies to them. But the media feeds this fear daily.

The Jena case was ignored for months. The Wilson case was unheard of by major media for years. But the OJ Simpson case has never stopped being discussed since the trial started. For 2 days now, the leading story (at least at Fox News) virtually every hour has been some aspect of the OJ Simpson case. Virtually every reporter I’ve heard has referred to the prior trial and has tactfully alleged (though not crossing the legal line of making a direct statement) that OJ was guilty of the original murder trial. They forget to state that he was found innocent, and thus IS innocent. Under the same nature of coverage, Senator Ted Kennedy should be referred to as the ‘the alleged murderer Senator Kennedy.’ That of course does not happen. Every time there is a murder of a married woman, references to Robert Blake are not drawn.

Right now OJ is in pre-trial. There is no question he will go to trial. There is a small chance he will win the trial. Small because though he has a very high priced defense (which is uncommon for an African American to start with) which should allow him to win under the skewed nature of the legal system, the media has been trying him for over a decade.

If this were a White man, and he was arguably set up by a less than credible Black male (who illegally taped entrapping conversations prior to the event) in an event organized by the Black male – most would say he would walk. If every other person involved was given immunity from prosecution or deals on their crimes, most would say this was prosecutorial bias, and an attempt to railroad the White male. If it were stated that the intended crime was told to the FBI with plenty of time before hand, and they did nothing, many would demand the White male be released from this set-up.

But OJ is Black, and he got his lucky win against the legal system already.

I want criminals prosecuted for their crimes, regardless of skin color or income level. I want justice for victims without thought of race or where they live. But more than that, I want a legal system that is balanced. If that means that the rich have an advantage, then all rich people have that advantage without race being a factor. I’m no idealist. If the system is flawed, as all systems are, I at least want it flawed equally. If violent crimes get overly-harsh penalties all convicted should get that.

But we cannot trumpet how wonderful our system is, and I do think it is the greatest in the world, when we enact inequality on a daily basis. We are the greatest, but we can be greater. Don’t you think so?

Taking a look at the past and present race relations - 10.31.2007.1

** This can also be seen at Black & White Blog, where I am a co-author. You can comment either here or at that site, which is a forum for views on race issues from many sides. **

I was going through some of my favorites at YouTube yesterday and I ran across an old Saturday Night Live skit that is classic and funny on so many levels. But it’s more than that as well. It features Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor, from the 70’s when SNL was at its best and most biting social commentary.

I’m sure everyone my age and older have had the joy of seeing this long ago. For those who are younger, check out the clip.



Now the point is this. What really has changed since then? While there is PC this and that, and Blacks have gone from being “Black and Proud” to ‘Forshizille my nizzelle’, has anything become better?

Yes there is more interracial dating, yet it is still shunned as the recent death threat against the Boise State player that asked his girlfriend to marry him on national television proved. Yes there are Black doctors, lawyers, and even Secretaries of State yet Blacks still have disproportionate poverty and unemployment levels. While Senator Obama is running for President of the United States, the number of CEO’s of major corporations (on the stock market) can be counted on 1 hand.

In the 70’s the N-word was understood to be a negative term, and even this video showing its use to evoke humor recognizes the absolute anger attached to the word. Today kids, of all races, routinely play on pronunciation and use the term daily as a greeting. Yet its use has not changed its meaning as we have seen in the Jena, West Virginia and Lititz cases.

The KKK, and neo-nazi groups still exist. Cops still beat and kill Blacks (name one year where there have not been several unjustified explosions of police abuse since 1980, whether or not it got national media attention). The legal system (the word Justice is unwarranted in describing the system we have) routinely continues to convict innocent Blacks, and invoke penalties so harsh as to be ludicrous to compare on those Blacks convicted of crimes, as with the Jena 6 and Genarlow Wilson.

While the surface of the nation may seem like calm waters, it’s not. There is as much or more racial tension in this nation than ever before. Political Correctness may prevent hearing all the tension, but it’s doing little to nothing to prevent the action itself. The media, without uttering a single slur, has never stopped presenting slurs or negatively portraying African Americans.

In 1977, the year Roots was on television (I haven’t seen it on ever since), there were 24 Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian characters on all of television (not less than 69 shows). That number includes 5 shows where the characters had starring roles, but does not include a cartoon (Fat Albert) or a dance show (Soul Train) which was only on Saturdays. It also includes 2 programs that ended that year, Sanford & Son and Electric Company, and one star (Freddie Prinze) that died.

While it’s harder to define all the shows on television today, including cable and reruns, looking at the top 100 first-run programs I get an estimate of 18 African Americans. I’m sure I’m missing a few characters (only counting leading and featured support characters) and television shows. My previous efforts, including reruns, came to less than 2% of all characters are African Americans and less for other minorities. That’s sad when there has been an increase of 1000% in television channels since 1977.

So what has really gotten better? Yes some individuals are doing better, but not society. The realization is pitiful. At least in 1977 we were honest, but the main thing I see that improved the most is our ability to hide the anger that exists.

Do you agree?